An “Age of Atlantic Revolution”

The Storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution, 14 July 1789, Unknown Artist

The ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’ describes the period between 1775 and 1825 that created a revolutionary wave promoting ideals of liberalism and sovereignty from ruling powers. This essay will consider how historians have researched the French, American and Haitian Revolutions - the notion of an ‘Atlantic’ Revolution was first articulated within a piece from R.R Palmer in 1954, who promoted conceptions of ‘this whole revolutionary movement in Europe and America’ to be ‘taken together’.[1] Since the 1980s historians have added to this debate through new viewpoints of different historical actors whilst, in the most recent historiography, historians have looked at the Atlantic Revolutions from a global perspective. To determine how far we can speak of an ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’, this essay will consider the similarities and differences between the Atlantic Revolutions, to consider this phenomenon’s usefulness as a historical construct. It will also consider whether the term ‘Atlantic’ is too limiting in defining this period of history.

This essay will first consider assessments of the American Revolution with the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. David Armitage writes that the Declaration of Independence of 1776 announced the entry of the United States into ‘international history’, which included the ‘opinions of mankind’ to become ‘Free and Independent’. [2] According to Pierre Serna, the independence of the United States relied upon a ‘military struggle against London that forged the nation with blood and iron.’[3] In this respect, Serna describes the American War of Independence as a political revolution by definition. As a result, according to Jack Greene, this ‘stressed the process of nation building’, leading to the establishment of a republican political regime and an established system for the distribution of power between the nation and its states.[4] In this regard, the American Revolution can be described as a political revolution that achieved American independence through military force.

However, most historians agree the American Revolution became a story of states' rights rather than individual rights. Armitage argues that the American Declaration shows that national independence did not necessarily benefit individuals or groups.[5] David Brion Davis notes that black enfranchisement was still a factor in post-revolutionary America and that the full worth of the American Revolution lay ahead.[6] Jack P. Greene acknowledges a gradual reconstruction of political and social structures over the following half-century whilst Ilan Rachum further backs that whilst independence was won by the mid-1780s, it was merely an incidental factor in the longer-term ‘American Revolution’. [7],[8] Therefore, The Declaration of Independence benefitted little to the poor, women and above all, the enslaved population. Armitage concludes convincingly that it was an ‘acknowledgement of victory rather than a statement of ideals to be pursued’.[9] Thus, the historical consensus shows that American Revolution is limited as a form of social revolution within the ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’.

Instead, it appears more intuitive to use the American Revolution as the catalyst for the construction of revolutions. Philipp Ziesche notes how the American Revolution aided French justification of political principles and choices, most notably in the French Article III in the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ which noted ‘The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation’.[10],[11] Keith Baker adds that this profoundly new notion of ‘revolution’ began to arise in the minds of Frenchmen when they first heralded the outcome of the American War of Independence as ‘The American Revolution’.[12] This political rhetoric altered the administrative face of France: a republic based around elected deputies replaced a monarchy supported by the nobility. This does present a transatlantic society of political debate and intellectual exchange, which led to political similarities between the American and the French Revolutions.

However, in stark contrast to the American Revolution, the French Revolution created a radical social break with the past, with a new beginning based on equality, popular sovereignty, and national rebirth. François Auland describes the Revolution as paving the way ‘not merely for the enfranchisement of France, but of all humanity’.[13] The Revolution presented itself as ‘breaking with the past, founding a new political union, and resolving social divisions’ with the French politician Camille Desmoulins describing, ‘No longer are we from Chartres or Montlhéry… we are all French, we are all brothers’.[14] Pierre Serna shares this view and defines the French Revolution as ‘independence through shared and equal rights’, seen in law equality and government participation.[15] He further applies a postcolonial reading to France in order to see absolutism as a form of colonial ‘monarchic’ empire, in comparison to the common idea of war and independence that is shared between the two revolutions. This radical stance certainly places the French Revolution as a form of social revolution, which makes it distinct from the lack of social change in the American Revolution. As a result, this highlights an issue in the ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’ as a concept, due to the strong contrast between the revolutions in this period.

Peter McPhee argues that the ‘Atlantic’ Age of Revolution is too constrained geographically to explain the origins and repercussions of the French Revolution.[16] McPhee first notes that The French Revolution has long been understood through the viewpoint of French Enlightenment writers, within a trans-Atlantic ‘Republic of Letters’. McPhee states that the French Revolution can only be understood from an international perspective due to a long struggle within Europe for self-determination and liberty against entrenched hierarchies of ‘social orders’.[17] Not only did France abolish slavery and carry through the full equality of inheritance, but as a republic, it was able to mobilize its forces to defeat a European coalition intent on its downfall. Serna also looks at the French Revolution from a global perspective, adding it became a ‘mirror for the world’, calling on other nations to liberate themselves and create conditions of shared and equal rights.[18] Thus, McPhee attempts to look further than the political aspects of the revolution and place the French Revolution into a global historiography of imperial crises of commerce and territory. In the final paragraphs, McPhee also says that the French Revolution must be de-centered if we are to see it as an Atlantic Revolution. Thus, this open and refreshing conclusion allows for a greater understanding of the links between the Atlantic Revolutions and the rest of the world.

Interpretations of the Haitian Revolution are also important in the ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’. Manisha Sinha argues that the ‘Haitian Revolution accomplished more for the New World than the American Revolution’.[19] In her argument, she concludes that black abolitionists in the United States invented their own discourse from the Haitian Revolution, exposing the shortcomings of American revolutionary ideals towards slavery. Whilst most historians agree with Sinha on the notion that the American Revolution only aided in founding a white man’s republic, Robin Blackburn argues that the Haitian Revolution went much further than France in carrying the ‘torch of freedom and citizenship’ across the Atlantic.[20] In 1792, slaves and free black men challenged the ruling hierarchy of plantation owners, with an explosion of social conflict organized around the stark terms of black and white. Knight acknowledges the significance of this revolution as, ‘Socially, the lowest order of society – slaves, became equal, free and independent’, whilst politically, the new citizens created ‘the second independent state in the Americas’.[21] Whilst having similarities to the French Revolution in political and social ideals over liberation, the Haitian Revolution was the first to use race as a key factor in revolution thus showing neighbouring Caribbean states and Latin America that becoming a black independent state was viable. Knight and Blackburn further note that this revolution also shattered white complacency of the superiority of their political models that undoubtedly accentuated opponents of slavery to consider ending the Atlantic slave trade, which eventually occurred in 1807 in Britain. Again, this leads to issues with the concept of the ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’ as the Haitian Revolution, despite some similarities, was unprecedented in this period.

Laurent Dubois adds an intellectual history of the Haitian Revolution, writing from the viewpoint of the enslaved population. He argues that slaves ‘made definite political analysis of the power structure’ and ‘resisted in ways that made them central protagonists in the demolition of slavery’ through exploring political thought in enslaved communities. [22] This is important as Vincent Brown argues ‘slaveholders wrote the first draft of history’ so ‘subsequent historiography has strained to escape from their point of view’.[23] An analysis from Malech Glachem has shown that commentators in Saint-Domingue did use the word ‘revolution’ along with reports of insurgents claiming entitlement to the ‘Rights of Man’. [24] The use of these phrases shaped discourse in Europe and planters in the colonies as fears accelerated of slaves emerging as a dangerous political force. Thus, political action and thoughts of the enslaved people in the Atlantic World influenced intellectuals in Europe who were able to open parallels for change. Dubois concludes that this process generated what we view today as the true thinking of the Enlightenment: ‘radical universalism that overthrew profit for principle and defended human rights’ against the ‘empire’ and ‘arguments of racial hierarchy.[25] While Dubois is not particularly convincing in saying the Haitian Revolution alone was the foundation for Enlightenment thought, his argument is stronger when used to show the importance of Haitian discourse in the circulation of revolutionary ideas on a global scale. In this regard, Dubois’ piece appears to be a continuation of McPhee’s call for fresh and enriching research surrounding the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Dubois adds a broader narrative by incorporating silent and subordinated voices into this historiography.

To conclude, as discussed within the essay, historians have assessed the idea of an ‘Age of Atlantic Revolution’ since the 1960s. Firstly, it is important to look at the concept of ‘revolution’, to discuss whether we can speak of all the Atlantic Revolutions as one. All can be defined as political revolutions due to the self-liberation from the ruling establishments, yet the historical consensus convincingly shows that the American Revolution failed as a social revolution, whilst the racial aspect of the Haitian Revolution made it socially distinct from the radical class-based French Revolution. So, whilst all notable in this age of revolutionary discourse, it is difficult to speak of an Age of Atlantic Revolution due to the dissimilarities between the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. Secondly, this revolutionary period's ‘Atlantic’ space should also be discussed. Modern historians have started to assess this phenomenon from a global perspective, looking at how actors and their revolutionary discourse were spread across the world and the consequences that followed. If we limit ourselves to an Atlantic Age of Revolution, it is possible to miss out on important global experiences from this period. Therefore, it is intuitive to take the previous ‘Atlantic’ historiography into a new and enriched globalised Age of Revolution.

[1] R.R Palmer, ‘The World Revolution of the West: 1763-1800’, Political Science Quarterly 69, no. 1 (1954): 14 accessed at https://doi.org/10.2307/2145054. [2] David Armitage, ‘The Declaration of Independence in World Context’, OTH Magazine of History, Vol 18, No.3, The Atlantic World, (April 2004), 62 [3] Pierre Serna, ‘Every Revolution is a War of Independence’, The French Revolution in Global Perspective, eds., Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt and William Max Nelson, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, (2013), 171 [4] Jack P. Greene, ‘The American Revolution’, The American Historical Review, Vol.105, No.1, (Feb 2000), 93 [5]Armitage, ‘Declaration of Independence in World Context’, 64 [6] David Brion Davis, Slavery and Freedom in the age of the American Revolution, Charlottesville, (1983), 301 [7] Greene, ‘The American Revolution’, 93 [8] Ilan Rachum, ‘From ‘American Independence’ to the ‘American Revolution’’, Journal of American Studies, Vol. 27, No.1, (April, 1996), 81 [9]Armitage, ‘Declaration of Independence in World Context’, 64 [10] Philipp Ziesche, ‘Exporting American Revolutions’, Journal of the Early Republic, Vol.26, No.3 (2006) 442 [11] Keith Michael Baker, ‘A World Transformed’, The Wilson Quarterly, Vol 13, No. 3. (1989), 38 [12] Baker,’ A World Transformed’, 37 [13] François-Alphonse Aulard, The French Revolution: A political history, 1789-1804, London T.F. Unwin, (1910), 256 [14] Camille Desmoulins in Serna, ‘Every Revolution is a War of Independence’, 179 [15] Serna, ‘Every Revolution is a War of Independence’, 179 [16] Peter McPhee, ‘Rethinking the French Revolution and the ‘Global Crisis’ of the Late-Eighteenth Century’, French History and Civilization, Vol.5, (2012), 57 [17] McPhee, ‘Rethinking the French Revolution’, 64 [18] Serna, ‘Every Revolution is a War of Independence’, 182 [19] Manisha Sinha, ‘to ‘Cast Just Obliquy’ on Opressors: Black Radicalism in the Age of Revolution’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol.64, No.1, (2007), 159 [20] Robin Blackburn, ‘Haiti, Slavery and the Age of the Democratic Revolution’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol.63, No. 4, (2006), 674 [21] Franklin W. Knight, “The Haitian Revolution,” The American Historical Review, 105:1 (2000), 114 [22] Laurent Dubois, ‘An Enslaved Enlightenment’, Social History Vol.31, No.1, (2006), 2 [23] Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War, Belknapp Press, (2020), 23 [24] Malech Walid Glachem, Sovereignty and Slavery in the Age of Revolution, PhD. Dissertation, (Stanford University, 2001) [25]Dubios, ‘An Enslaved Enlightenment’, 14